Although dragon boat races originated in Southern China over 2,500 years ago, the festivals have an almost uncanny connection with the cancer experience. The ancient dragon boat festival commemorated the death of Chu Yuan, the father of Chinese poetry. Chu Yuan was also a disgraced diplomat. When the emperor was defeated by enemy armies for having failed to follow Chu Yuan's advice, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, the poet drowned himself in sorrow.
Suppressed during the Cultural Revolution, dragon boating is now popular all over the world. Dragon boating for cancer survivors is a relatively new phenomenon. For breast cancer survivors the story starts in 1996, when Canadian exercise expert Dr Don McKenzie had the bright idea of testing whether vigorous upper body exercise had any effect on lymphedema, the swelling that breast cancer survivors can sometimes develop in their arms. Dr McKenzie chose dragon boating to test his hypothesis that exercise was appropriate for women whose arms were weakened from surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. The women in Dr McKenzie's study not only regained upper body strength, the camaraderie among team mates was also a positive force for return to vitality. Thus, the first BCS dragon boat team was formed in Vancouver, BC, when the women in Dr McKenzie's study refused to disband! Since then, dragon boating teams for breast cancer survivors have sprung up in Canada, the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.
The Wellness Snapdragons DBC joins DBC of Charleston, SC, as the second general cancer survivor team in the USA, and Bravehearts, Canada's first co-ed all-cancer survivor team.